


Cold: absence of heat

by raven_lore



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:28:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_lore/pseuds/raven_lore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it has nothing to do with temperatures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold: absence of heat

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: no spoilers as such, but some part won't make much sense if you haven't seen all the aired episodes
> 
> In response to the sga_flashfic challenge: f**cking freezing
> 
> Even with a prompt so porn/smut inclined, my brain had to come up with this. *sigh* Thanks to the_green_sheep and _bettina_ for beta, hand holding and help in finding a title. All remaining mistakes are my fault.

It's the waters raising up to claim him, having heard the last moments of everyone else, their screams and their even more deafening silence. It's the false memory of taking his last breath of air, wondering if that crazy plan of Elizabeth and Zelenka's - no, the Czech guy, that was probably how he thought of him back then; how he thought of Sheppard then he doesn't even want to think about - wondering if that plan had worked, thinking that it probably hadn't. It's thinking that, no matter how much he had tried, everyone was dead. And the water must had been cold, but not as cold as the feeling inside his heart. Fear and guilt and he wishes she had never told him. He wishes he didn't have nightmares of that water and the colder grip inside his chest. He wishes he didn't have flashes of it when they are fighting for their life. When everyone is depending on him to pull some miracle out of his ass and he needs to be at his best and instead he suddenly remembers that he has already failed them all at least once. He wishes he could tell himself, the other himself, that it was all right, that he'd got another chance. That he'd chased away the cold. But he knows that's not going to happen.

***

It's when they tell her about the nanites, the way she can feel them inside herself. A flood made of millions, more, all so cold and distant. And she shivers thinking that the cold will win and extinguish all that is heat, all that is her.

***

It's a pair of blue eyes he still can't forget. Eyes that gave him an order he wishes he could have disobeyed. Eyes that are just the door to a whole room filled with other people, people with green and brown eyes; eyes scarred for eternity by the fucking nightmares that inhabit the Pegasus Galaxy.

***

It's the hunger, the hunger for something that he didn't want, that he can't do without. The hunger that makes him feel vulnerable until the next Wraith crosses his path.

***

It's the flames and the way they burn and consume everything in front of him, inside him, leaving him cold for so long that he's almost grateful to be on the run: no time to think, no time to remember he used to feel warm when she smiled at him and their world was still alive.

***

It's the touch that slides over her conscience, the alien way of thought, of being, that she feels when she connects to her. The way she feels herself win, overpower the queen, knowing that her victory depends on how similar they might be deep inside.

***

It's the hunger, hunger that was natural, and then unnatural, and now he sometimes doesn't know how it feels anymore. And when that happens he concentrates on those who are responsible for it, those who tried to change him with no right. Those who will pay for it, sooner or later.

***

It's a thing of the past, the past he tries not to think too much about, the past he left behind himself on Earth. The desolation, poverty, hunger and hopelessness of his childhood. And then sometimes he wonders if the cold has crept inside him and stayed with him and that's why he doesn't feel it anymore.

***

It's the knowledge of how easily she could lose her knowledge, one stupid gene, one stupid fall and then there would be only her, without her professional self to fall back onto and no way to interact with other people, to try and at least have a peek into what other people so easily call life.

***

It's the smile he found on his own lips, that makes him freeze, growing cold inside like he's never been, not even when he was a captive and starving, as he realizes that for a moment he's thought of them as more than just food.

***

It has to be death. It's what he's always thought death would feel like. But then, when it happens, there's no time for it. He doesn't hear the explosion; doesn't feel the heat. He doesn't see his whole life. He doesn't feel anything. Not even the cold grip of death itself. And then it's over.


End file.
